Preventing Password Cracking and Acceptance of Cracked Passwords

A computer program product comprising a computer readable storage medium having a computer readable program stored therein, wherein the computer readable program, when executed on a computing device, causes the computing device to:

• receive an entity identifier and password for authenticating an entity to access a protected computing resource;
• generate a salt value as a random value that is combined with the password to generate a salted password;
• generate a hash value based on a hash function and the salted password as an input to the hash function;
• generate, based on the password, an encryption key for encrypting the salt value;
• encrypt the salt value based on the encryption key and an encryption algorithm to generate an encrypted salt value;
• and
• store the entity identifier, hash value, and encrypted salt value in a secured database for later retrieval to validate subsequent access requests specifying the entity identifier.

An apparatus comprising:

• at least one processor;
• and
• at least one memory coupled to the at least one processor, wherein the at least one memory comprises instructions which, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the at least one processor to:
• receive an entity identifier and password for authenticating an entity to access a protected computing resource;
• generate a salt value as a random value that is combined with the password to generate a salted password;
• generate a hash value based on a hash function and the salted password as an input to the hash function;
• generate, based on the password, an encryption key for encrypting the salt value;
• encrypt the salt value based on the encryption key and an encryption algorithm to generate an encrypted salt value;
• and
• store the entity identifier, hash value, and encrypted salt value in a secured database for later retrieval to validate subsequent access requests specifying the entity identifier.